He to plague mankind distils;
And his venom in vast globules
Sea and land with havock fills.
When a man by ling’ring sickness
Tortured, feels th’ approach of death;
When he, during life’s last struggle,
Faint and fev’rish pants for breath;
When the wife reads in her husband’s
Sunken eye his last farewell;
Then his scales the serpent shaking